Firstly I would like to express my considerable and sincere gratitude to Dr Mosley for going down this rabbit hole a few years back, and persisting with it despite the nay-saying from many in the field of health! Dr Mosley’s efforts in getting this information out there will, I am sure benefit many, many people.

The new fast 800 book was the first time I had seen reference to Dr Panda’s work on circadian rhythms, and I strongly believe that this work will absolutely revolutionize the understanding of health and wellness.

From what I read about this information in Dr Mosley’s book, I got a copy of Dr Panda’s book, as well as watching his TED talks on YouTube. Dr Panda explains the science of WHY time restricted eating works, and how regular routines are vital to health.

I have done eating within an 8-6 hour window before, and frankly it didn’t work. The weight didn’t come off, (it went UP), I didn’t improve food cravings and I often got muscle twitching (being quite active daily, the major muscles didn’t seem to be getting fueled properly).

What I didn’t know then was the KEY importance of two things:

1. Being consistent in my eating time window. I would often start at different times and so finish at different times.

2. It is better to eat most food earlier in the day, around breakfast and lunch time. I had for most of my life consumed most of my food in the evening.

In the last three weeks I have eaten ANYTHING I wanted, including fish and chips, the full English, chocolate, crisps, etc. I have also eaten plenty of vegetables, cooked and raw, but I deliberately didn’t want cut back because I am on holiday and I wanted to see if this CONSISTENT timing made a difference.

The results have been twofold:

1. I have consistently lost weight over the last three weeks, averaging a pound a week. Three pounds so far in total.

2. My appetite is happily diminishing. I am finding I can pass on dessert because I just don’t want it (there is chocolate fudge cake sitting untouched in my kitchen.) This is quite a difference from before. I would speculate that because the body better processes food during the day, rather than the evening or at night, cravings are reduced as a result. The body doesn’t feel the need for more.

According to Dr Panda, the body needs routine, and when it doesn’t get it, then a kind of ‘jet lag’ is the result. This applies to eating as well as sleeping.

I can definitely recommend Dr Panda’s book, ‘The Circadian Code’. It is a very enlightening read.

For anyone who is interested in my own current routine it is quite simple:

I start eating at 09:30, or as close as possible (that is the easiest start time for me over a week). It might just be something very small, or a large breakfast, depending on what I am doing.

I try to have a large breakfast or lunch. Much to my surprise it HAS NOT made me feel tired or weighed down during the day.

I finish eating at 17:30. I find that I am generally eating much less at dinner time now, and sometimes if I have a large breakfast, I have little or nothing at lunch time.

If you’re new to time restricted eating, Dr Panda recommends starting with a 12 hour window and then gradually reducing this to 8 hours.

My own personal recommendation would be ensure you have the SAME START TIME EVERY DAY. Even if it is just something very small.

I wanted to put this information out there because I feel it might ultimately be hugely beneficial for people.

PLEASE NOTE: ONLY WATER, NOTHING ELSE, SHOULD BE CONSUMED DURING THE FASTING PERIOD-Why? He explains it in the book, but also in interviews you can find on YouTube.

While I congratulate you and support you for finding a regime that works for you, I would be cautious about generalising and ascribing the results to the specific details of your current eating habits based on a sample size of 1.

TRE is also working for me, but I usually start fasting around 8pm. Then I eat when I get hungry, which is usually between 10:30am and noon, the time when I get hungry seems to directly track the size of meal eaten the previous evening.

I freely drink tea with milk during my fasting periods.

I might argue that eating when I am hungry, even if the time varies by a couple of hours from day to day is not fighting the circadian rhythm.

I’m with redcar, what works for you might not work for me and we all need to find the best way to lose weight and improve our health, and it also has to be something that fits in with our daily lives.
Body clocks work differently from person to person, just as some people are up with the lark and others are night owls, so our eating habits differ.

I lost 68lbs drinking my tea and coffee with milk and I disagree that one must only have water.

I am rarely hungry first thing so eating anything let alone a large meal isn’t something I would do as I believe one should only eat when truly hungry and if trying to lose weight it is IMHO counterintuitive.
I am also someone who once I start eating I don’t want to stop so the later in the day I break my fast the better. I have never been one for eating late in the evening and eating a huge meal just before going to bed doesn’t work for me.

I would also say that I believe that what one eats is far more important than when one eats. If one has a diet rich in processed foods and sugar (which creates a sugar rush) cravings occur after a couple of hours when blood glucose levels drop.

I eat anything I want but in smaller amounts. I’ll qualify that with noting that my tastes have changed since I began IF. I’ve always eaten lots of veg as I had an allotment, but I eat less meat, rarely eat pasta or rice and much less bread which I make myself. I’ve never been one for processed foods or takeaways as I love to cook. I love cake and I still eat it occasionally but it is either homemade or something from a patisserie rather than a packet. I don’t eat biscuits and have never been fond of candy but enjoy good chocolate occasionally and I definitely enjoy a glass of wine, a beer or a G&T!
I occasionally eat fish and chips but I wouldn’t go near a full English breakfast as it contains more calories than my TDEE!

Go and watch the TEDX Venice Beach talk on YouTube. It is free and might be one of the most useful talks anyone ever sees on the subject of health.

There are specific scientific reasons for the approach he advocates. I’m not going to go into the specifics, because Dr Panda does it considerably better than I can, and given the time and effort he and his colleagues have taken, people should buy his book and read it.

What is detailed in the book is solid science, years of studies and research, at one of the leading institutes for healthcare in the world. It isn’t the latest fad diet, it isn’t even a ‘diet’, but rather what researchers have discovered, to their surprise, in regards to the importance of circadian rhythms.

Dr Mosely was interviewed in the Sunday Times Home section this week:

“Q: What are the fitness and health trends we should watch out for this year?

A: …time restricted eating…is going to be big. The work of the chronobiologist Satchin Panda on the importance of microbiomes in the gut is interesting.”

You’ve missed my point about Circadian rhythm which I referred to as body clocks. Each persons own rhythm is managed by their own brain which synchronises the body clocks in our cells, meaning we are all running on our own individual rhythm and we need to do what works best for us.

We all need to know our bodies well enough to recognise what works for us and what does not. There is no one size fits all.

I’ve been following TRE for six years and it works very well for me but only if I don’t eat until I’m truly hungry and that is rarely before what most people call lunchtime but is when I choose to break my fast. If I eat first thing in the morning when I’m not hungry, I feel sluggish and out of sorts and that tells me that it’s not a good time for me to eat a meal.

Fourth week in a row. Weightloss. A little, but down the scales go. The Scottish breakfast on Monday was OK. Not as good as Wednesday’s “Full Monty”. The pastry on the butcher’s own pork pies was perhaps a little dry. Last night’s fish and chips hit the spot. And I ate that aforementioned chocolate cake as well.

And no, this kind of menu has never led to me losing weight before.

The research is clear in stating most calories should be eaten earlier in the day. This isn’t my opinion, but research done on animals and humans. All I am doing is trying it out for myself.

As I’ve said twice already, one size doesn’t fit all and eating a large meal early in the day does not work for everyone.

If you are happy with what you are doing and it is working for you, that’s fine.
I note your diet isn’t exactly representative of what is deemed to constitute a healthy diet so you might end up slim but not necessarily healthy.

All I can say is this far, missing breakfast has improved mood, the food choices I’m making and help regulate appetite. This may all turn around and bite me on the behind but for me enforcing an early breakfast led to weight gain and lethargy.

I’m working in Asia, so been busy with relocation, a new job and the general hectic nature of life some times.

From the second weekend of May I started to stop eating around 3pm each day. Breakfast, and ‘lunch’ that kind of lingered into 2-3pm. Nothing except water after this time.

Lost more than 4kg in weight from then until today. Eating whatever I want. ‘White carbs’, red meat, chocolate, and the odd alcoholic drink. Not total rubbish, generally healthy, but no effort or restriction regarding what I wanted, and no thought regarding ‘calories’. In fact, probably healthier than most diets, because it has been varied, without the ‘you must cut out/down on’ mantra oft repeated. Certainly a damn sight happier diet that what most are pushing.

From this experience, and a great deal (since 2013) of TRE experience in general, I can say, personally, that an early TRE is far more effective for weight loss, but more importantly, a general feeling of well being.

I have always enjoyed dinner, and often left almost all of my calories until then. And it simply hasn’t had anything like the weight loss benefit, or feeling of well being, that early TRE has given.

I would repeat again that people should look at Dr Panda’s work, and one of the people he writes about in his book. I would also say look at the research now coming out regarding “eTRE” (early time restricted eating). Go try for yourself, because it doesn’t matter what anyone says, only what results you get. And it won’t cost you anything more than a little time (and money, if you get Dr Panda’s book.)

One interesting adjustment I would add to what I said before. My eating schedule can vary between 8am-3pm. I don’t always start and finish at exactly the same time. Shorter eating windows have not necessarily mean’t more weight loss the next day. I would say finishing around 2pm rather than 3pm seems to show a better next day result (I have weighed myself daily while trying this), though come each Friday there has been a consistent weekly weight loss.